I just noticed that last-minute write-ins are okay. So even though I'll be the only vote, and even though it's a stretch to call it horror (although it does contain various tropes of the genre), I'm putting Sybil in my top 20. There's almost nothing that ever terrified me as much as the mother and the "green kitchen"--in 1976, when it first played on TV, or when I watched it again a few months ago.

May I bring the conversation down for a moment? Firestarter 2: Rekindloled is made for TV and it would be cute but they revised the original story, and that's not right. Come the fuck on. They could have made a perfectly terrible made-for-TV movie without those irrelevant changes.

Also, Stpephen King is a dipshit for hating The Shining, but then to the made-for-TV remake.

And his bitter public statements toward the guy who hit him with his car are NAGL, either.

I've probably related this anecdote before (from an old interview with King).

In the middle of making The Shining, King got a 3:00 a.m. phone call from Kubrick. "Do you believe in god?" Kubrick asked him; King replied that he did. "I don't," said Kubrick, then hung up. King said that this got to the core of his problem with the original--that to get the film right, you had to believe in god. So he redid it himself. I have no desire to see the remake.

King is so wrong. Even the book itself doesn't have much to do with god, demons, eternal damnation. Most of its power comes from its depiction of a man refusing to come to terms with his own limitations as a patriarch.

The story was so unusual, it's stayed in my mind ever since, but then and now, it seems like such narrow and theoretical grounds on which to dismiss the entire film. My guess is that it's a colourful story (maybe embellished, maybe not) standing in for a various other problems he had with Kubrick's film.

I really appreciate this sort of campaigning! Putting together this ballot has been humbling.

The Shinging remake was a mini-series, right? It was certainly at least 2 episodes. It was offensive. Far worse than Firestarter 2.

It's interesting that Dennis Hopper and Malcolm McDowell are in Firefart 2. How much did this thing pay? MM is kind of funny in parts. He manages to make terrible lines funny, e.g., re a dead guy in a restaurant cooler, "Now, you don't suppose this is a health code violation, do you?"

I just noticed that last-minute write-ins are okay. So even though I'll be the only vote, and even though it's a stretch to call it horror (although it does contain various tropes of the genre), I'm putting Sybil in my top 20.

Sybil is THE ONLY movie I have ever seen that has given me weeks and weeks of nightmares. I know I've mentioned this before. Another vote here if I know it'll count! That movie is straight up terrifying.

need to see this again. i watched it about a decade back and was seriously in love with the first half hour or so, but kind of zoned out as it went along and barely remember the second half. so strange and dankly atmospheric, psychedelic even, but also slooooooow as all not get out.

Sybil is THE ONLY movie I have ever seen that has given me weeks and weeks of nightmares.

I bet that anyone who's ever seen it has never forgotten the mother. The horror-film aspect is made very explicit at one point, a scene that ends with Sybil cowering in a corner after one of her flashbacks, whimpering and sucking her thumb; "What did that monster do to you?" Joanne Woodward asks, and in terms of how the mother's presented, she's not really speaking metaphorically.

Haven't read/tabulated any of the ballots that have come in yet ... pending the nailing down of my own ballot (have it down to 100 and will pare down during my lunch today). But I'd like to just make one small request: could you make sure to let me know what your ILX username is when you're submitting ballots? Or, if you're a lurker, that's cool too.

guess I should start repping for favorites while ppl still have time to watch.

shivers - cronenberg's first feature length is also, on the whole, the best of his early films. creepy, claustrophobic, transgressive. unfortunately the DVD is out of print in the US.

carnival of souls - if you can forgive its technical problems (poor dubbing in some scenes, wooden acting) and focus instead on its strengths (some amazing cinematography, a smart script, heavy atmosphere of existential dread), maybe you'll agree that it's one of the all-time greats. a waking nightmare.

ringu - granted, the remake is v good, but not better than the quiet, creepy original. I don't know what it is about that climactic scene, so simple in execution, surreal in its implications, and effective beyond whatever its legion of imitators could accomplish.

Is the US version of Ringu worth catching if you've already seen the Japanese films?

yeah. it's a very nice-looking film, with atmospherically moody photography and lighting, some interesting production design. it fleshes out the mystery so it's more a "proper story" and less a bizarre enigma with a reveal at the end. it's more in line with american cinematic conventions, but not really any worse for that and still scary as hell. i enjoyed it.

I went as Samara for Halloween one year and this bozo at the party was all "Who are you supposed to be?" and I hissed "Seven days!!!" at him and he was like "Saturdays? Cool, I guess" and I knew these were not my people.